Environmental efforts backed in face of crunch
More than four out of 10, 43%, of consumers questioned in countries ranging from Britain to China and Mexico put climate change ahead of the global financial turmoil when asked about their present concerns.
And worldwide almost half, 48%, felt governments should be playing a leading role in tackling climate change, and three quarters, 77%, thought their country should do its “fair share” to cut emissions and allow developing countries to grow.
The research, which surveyed 12,000 people in 12 countries for the HSBC Climate Partnership in September, revealed people wanted to see governments taking direct action such as stopping deforestation.
But they did not see other, less direct, methods of tackling emissions such as international negotiations, green taxes or carbon trading schemes as a priority.
The second annual Climate Confidence Monitor found twice as many people, 55%, thought governments should invest in renewable energy as thought leaders should participate in international negotiations, 27%.
In Britain, the number of people who felt climate change was one of their biggest worries and the number making a personal effort to do something about it had both increased slightly to 26%.
But with people feeling their governments were not doing enough to tackle climate change, the numbers willing to change their own lifestyle and contribute more time and money to deal with the problem were down.
Lord Stern, author of the influential Stern review on the economics of climate change and adviser to HSBC on the issue, said that it was “encouraging” that people were still looking for government action in areas such as renewables and deforestation in a time of economic difficulty.
Now the challenge was to explain what could be achieved by less obvious solutions such as negotiating a new global agreement or emissions trading, he said.
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